Release of grand jury report delayed

Friday

Mar 9, 2018 at 12:01 AMMar 9, 2018 at 6:33 AM

By virtue that the report was finalized and presented to parties who had come under review by the grand jury, it became clear that jurors had chosen not to seek an indictment or indictments. However, whatever does appear in the report must be damaging enough that at least one person named has questioned its findings.

TOM McLAUGHLIN @TomMnwfdn

At least one person named in a grand jury report on the Okaloosa County School District’s operations has asked that information contained in the presentment be repressed or expunged.

For that reason the report was not released at the end of business Wednesday as the State Attorney’s Office had planned.

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“The Okaloosa grand jury report regarding the Okaloosa County School District will not be released until further order of the court,” a news release said. “Under the law regarding grand jury proceedings, no further information regarding this matter can be released at this time.”

Efforts to obtain additional details about the report, or reasons for its being withheld, were unsuccessful Wednesday.

“The press release says it all,” said Bill Bishop, chief assistant state attorney in Okaloosa County. “That is the extent of what I can say.”

By virtue that the report was finalized and presented to parties who had come under review by the grand jury, it became clear that jurors had chosen not to seek an indictment or indictments. However, whatever does appear in the report must be damaging enough that at least one person named has questioned its findings.

A “Reporter’s Handbook” published by the Florida Bar states that under state law:

“A report or presentment of the grand jury relating to an individual which is not accompanied by a true bill or indictment is confidential and exempt ... and shall not be made public or be published until the individual concerned has been furnished a copy thereof and given 15 days to file with the Circuit Court a motion to repress or expunge the report or that portion which is improper and unlawful.”

The motion to repress or expunge will now be heard by a judge, who will rule whether the petitioner’s challenge is valid or if the grand jury report can be released to the public as written. There is no time frame for the challenge to be heard and ruled upon.

“Motions to repress or expunge and proceedings concerning such motions are secret,” according to the Florida Bar’s handbook.

Issues come to light

Scandal began swirling around the Okaloosa County School District and Superintendent Mary Beth Jackson last August when a year-old report surfaced detailing an investigation conducted into allegations of a Kenwood Elementary School special education teacher physically harming a 4-year-old nonverbal autistic child.

The teacher, Marlynn Stillions, was arrested Sept. 13 on four counts of felony child abuse without great bodily harm, along with her former principal, Angelyn Vaughan, and Arden Farley, the investigator of the case. Farley and Vaughan were charged with multiple felony counts for failing to report suspected child abuse.

Following the arrests, the State Attorney’s Office took the investigation over from the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office as revelations came to light of abuse at other schools where special education students are taught. Also uncovered were incidents of school resource officer negligence, serial sexual harassment and teachers helping students cheat on tests.

The Northwest Florida Daily News reported about several instances in which educators who committed transgressions were transferred to new schools rather than receive serious disciplinary action.

Perhaps the most damning issue confronting the School District, though, has been the treatment of the June 2016 report detailing elements of child abuse committed by Stillions.

That Aug. 1, Stacie Smith — Jackson’s assistant superintendent of human resources — claimed that Farley had failed to follow union protocol in conducting his investigation of Stillions and that his confirmed findings of wrongdoing would be set aside.

Smith shelved the report without ever informing the victim’s parents, Eddie and Harvest Perillo, of the investigation. The report remained under wraps until a year later when Eddie Perillo, acting on a tip from an acquaintance, made a public records request for the document.

Evidence indicates union officials were aware of the investigation involving Stillions, who was a union representative at Kenwood Elementary. Also of interest is the fact that Smith declared Farley’s findings unfounded 30 days before voters went to the polls with Jackson’s bid for re-election at stake.

Smith was charged Jan. 29 with three felony counts of failing to report suspected child abuse. Charging documents state she also failed to act as mandated by the state after learning of abuses Stillions inflicted on the Perillos’ son, Noah. Smith has since resigned her administrative position.

When did superintendent know?

Jackson has claimed she only learned about the Stillions report when it was made public in August 2017 after Perillo turned it over to the Daily News.

But the superintendent confused the issue concerning her knowledge of the report on Sept. 21, when, under questioning by School Board Chairman Lamar White, she made contradictory statements.

Jackson originally told board members she had not looked at Farley’s report until after the Daily News published a story Aug. 5 that confirmed the Sheriff’s Office investigation into alleged abuse at Kenwood Elementary.

“Just like you, Mr. Chairman, when all of this broke in the news, I asked in August, and I have an email and a text to prove, that Aug. 6 of 2017 this year to see this report because I had never looked at it,” Jackson said.

Moments later, Jackson said Smith had called her in 2016 after deciding to close the Stillions file.

“I asked to review it at that point so that I could see for myself exactly what it said in that report,” Jackson said. “If something is crazy out there, Stacie calls me. And when she called me on this, and that was a year ago I believe when we had this conversation, she had thoroughly investigated this and spent a great deal of time getting the other side of the story.”

Jackson would later say she had misspoken about seeing the report in 2016.

Sheriff’s Office refutes Jackson

School Board members did not question Jackson’s contradiction during the September meeting, but a week later Arnold Brown, the Sheriff’s Office chief of investigations, confirmed that he had sent Jackson an email with the Farley report attached on May 18, three months ahead of when she told the School Board she had first viewed the document.

Brown told the Daily News that he had discussed with Jackson his agency’s investigation into the child abuse allegations lodged against Stillions.

“We discussed that the Sheriff’s Office is launching a criminal investigation based on the contents of the report by Arden Farley that I forwarded to her,” Brown said.

An uncovered email sent from Kenwood Elementary Principal Joan Pickard on July 18, 2016, appeared to provide even more evidence that Jackson knew, or should have known, Stillions was being investigated. Pickard’s email was sent to Stacie Smith and includes Jackson as a recipient via a courtesy copy.

In it Pickard specifically mentions Stillions and the official report Farley filed with Smith.

Pickard states members of her staff — records indicate as many as 19 — may have violated state law by not reporting Stillions’ actions because they either didn’t know they were supposed to or feared retaliation from the county’s teachers’ union.

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